


Just for Tonight

by jdale



Series: Elizabeth's Nightmares [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s03e06 The Real World, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 02:59:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdale/pseuds/jdale
Summary: If they ever crossed paths again, John Sheppard was going to make the Asurans pay.





	Just for Tonight

John was just about to climb back into bed, having gotten up to use the bathroom, when he heard a faint voice coming from his radio. He quickly plucked the earpiece off the nightstand and looped it over his ear. “This is Sheppard. Come again?”

_“Stop! Let go of me!”_

“Elizabeth?” A note of alarm crept into John’s voice.

_“Let me go! Help!”_

“I’m coming, Elizabeth! Hang on!”

John exited his quarters and took off down the hall at a dead run, Elizabeth’s shouts for help still echoing in his ear. He briefly considered radioing security for backup, but some irrational voice at the back of his brain told him not to, that he could handle this on his own. As he threw his hand at the door sensor and skidded to a stop inside Elizabeth’s quarters, he was immensely glad he had listened to that voice.

Elizabeth lay thrashing about on the bed, her eyes squeezed firmly shut. Her motion had caused the covers to wrap around her legs, binding them together like a stark white mermaid tail, and her arms flailed wildly.

“No! Stop! Get off me!” she cried out in her sleep.

John did the only thing he could think of: he placed both hands on her shoulder and began to shake her as gently as he could. “Elizabeth! Elizabeth, wake up!”

Suddenly, Elizabeth rolled toward him, closed her left hand into a fist, and swung it at his ear.

_Okay, that may not have been my most inspired idea,_ John thought as he ducked to avoid the blow. As her punch passed over his head, he reached up one hand and grabbed her forearm, holding it in place.

“ _Let me go!_ ” she yelled.

Too late, John noticed her legs swinging toward him. They connected solidly with the side of his midsection, forcing the air from his lungs and sending him stumbling backwards onto his rear, dragging Elizabeth with him onto the floor by the arm he still had held in his grasp.

When Elizabeth’s legs hit the floor, her eyes snapped open and she abruptly stopped struggling against his grip. “John? What are you doing here? Where am I?”

“You’re in your quarters on Atlantis,” John told her. “You must have left your radio on. I heard you screaming for help in your sleep and I thought you were being attacked.”

Elizabeth’s hand flew to her ear in panic. Upon finding her earpiece, she wrenched it out of her ear, tossing it on the bed, and collapsed into John’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably. John slipped his arms around her and began to rock her from side to side, rubbing her back as he did so.

“There, there,” he whispered soothingly. “It’s alright, Lizbeth. It’s alright. You’re safe now. They can’t hurt you anymore.” _I won’t let them,_ he added silently.

It was several minutes before Elizabeth’s sobs subsided enough for her to speak. “Did…did the whole city…hear me?” she asked fearfully.

“I have no idea,” John admitted. “My guess is most of them would’ve been asleep, though.”

“I…I didn’t…wake you, did I?” Elizabeth asked.

John shook his head. In response, Elizabeth exhaled slowly and let her head drop back onto his chest.

John gently patted her on the back a few times. “Come on, let’s get you back into bed, alright?” he suggested, slowly easing himself out from under her and setting to work on untangling her legs.

He soon had the covers unraveled from Elizabeth’s legs and laid back out on the bed.

“There, how’s that?” he asked as he helped her to her feet.

“That’s…thank you, John,” she said with a watery smile.

“Anything else I can do for you?”

‘Timid’ was not a word John would generally use to describe Elizabeth Weir, but it was the only thing he could come up with that seemed to fit the expression on her face.

“Stay?” Her voice sounded like that of a small child, and it broke John’s heart to see their leader reduced to a quivering wreck like this.

“Of course,” he agreed, silently swearing vengeance upon the Asurans for what they had done to her.

When they had both settled themselves into Elizabeth’s bed, she threw her arms around John with a ferocity that reminded him of a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. John returned the embrace gladly, enjoying the physical and emotional closeness they shared despite his anger at the situation that led to it. He knew they would almost certainly go back to their usual level of professional friendship in the morning, but even if it was just for tonight, he was more than willing to give Elizabeth whatever comfort she needed to get her through this.


End file.
